Hey! I resemble that remark! My paternal grandfather’s father immigrated from Southwestern Norway to Chicago around 1903 or '04. Grandpa didn’t emigrate until around 1909 when GG married his second wife.
My paternal grandmother’s parents and older sister emigrated from Norway around 1907. Grandma was born in Chicago.
All the Norwegian Great-Grandparents were active in the Salvation Army.
My maternal grandmother’s parents emigrated from Sweden in the early 1900’s. My maternal grandmother was born in Chicago. The first of this side of the family came over in the late 1890’s and for some reason changed his surname. We’re not sure why, but we think it had something to do with his creditors in Sweden. Anyway, every relative who followed took the new name so this side of the family doesn’t have a Swedish last name.
My maternal grandfather emigrated to Chicago around 1923, when he was 17.
My father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father came on a boat from England soon after the Mayflower and set up shop as a silk trader in Boston. After getting involved in the Anne Hutchinson debacle on her side, he was kicked out of the colony and was part of the original governing body of Rhode Island. Other parts of my father’s family don’t get much play in my family because, really, how can you beat that story? Though they were mostly of Anglo stock.
My mom’s side of the family is part Irish, part Alsatian, but mostly English. My mom’s mom is the Irish one, and I’m not really sure why they came. Ditto my mom’s father’s Alscatian ancestors. However, we are somehow related to a strain of French royalty, including a prince who won a Nobel Prize. The rest of my mom’s side is also a mixture of various English types. Therefore, I’m 1/16 Irish, 1/16 Alsatian, and 7/8 English.
When my grandfather got here he immediately changed his name, and from then on revealed almost no details about his life in the old country.
Whenever we asked my father if he knew any details of my grandfather’s background, he’d say “I know that if he’d liked it in the old country, he would have stayed there.”
well, on my father’s side it’s pretty well documented that they came to the US from Ireland and started working for the NYC railroads in the very early 1900s. I was born near Albany NY, so they didn’t move too far. Allegedly the family was involved in raising horses in Ireland based on some stories from my grandparents and great uncles and aunts.
On my mothers side it’s a little more hazy, but I do have a copy of a death certificate from NYC from perhaps 1918 listing the cause of death as Spanish Influenza. Yes, I know most certainly another victim of the global pandemic that year, but fascinating to me nonetheless. A great uncle apparently wrote for Laurel and Hardy, and there’s rumored to be a Supreme Court Justice somewhere in the past there as well. I know my mother’s side is Welsh/Irish, but do not know when they came to the states.
My great great grandfather (maternal, my grandmothers grandfather) was a twin in Ireland. He and his brother and their various broods wanted to come to America to be farmers, but they were told that only so many folks from one family could come over at a given time. So one changed his name to a slightly different spelling (McLean and McLain) and they all came over together. I can picture them giving a big old “fuck you” and laughing at the immigration officials at Ellis Island when they all came over on the same ship. That story warms my cockles, donchaknow. They settled in Illinois outside St Louis and were farmers.
My maternal grandfather’s family was, allegedly, part of the court of Mary, Queen of Scots, and fled to other parts of the world when Mary met her end. My end fled to Germany (changing from Wallace to Wallis) and then came over here… eventually. That part is a little hazy. They settled in St Louis and were farmers and merchants.
My paternal Grandmother’s parents emigrated from Germany (Vaughan) at some point and made their way to Oregon on the Oregon trail before turning around almost immediately and finally settling in St Louis.
My paternal Grandfather was raised on a Choctaw reservation in Oklahoma. That is the entire extent of knowledge about his side of the family. Eventually he made his way to St Louis.
Lots of sex was had in St Louis, to produce my parents and myself.
My maternal grandfather was born in Germany and I’m pretty sure he was in New York or New Jersey by the turn of the century. My maternal grandmother was born in Austria/Poland-ish (borders in flux and maybe Galicia/the Pale of Settlement anyway) and came to New York in 1913 when she was 10, with her family. My paternal grandfather was from the Ukraine. My paternal grandmother was born in New Jersey. Pretty sure her family was from Bohemia but I’m not recalling. Any way you slice it, with the exception of Germany, everybody lived where Jews were allowed to live in Europe, and I’m sure they thought of themselves as Jews who lived in their particular stetl rather than as “Ukrainians” or “Austrians” as they were not citizens.
On my mother’s side, some English founded a town in western Pennsylvania in the late 18th century, and some Irish Protestants showed up there in the middle of the 19th century.
My mother grew up in Pennsylvania, then went to Germany as an exchange student in 1961. She returned to the US with my father (born and raised in Germany, never meant to leave it) in 1964. They’ve been in the US ever since.
My paternal great-grandfather was studying to become a rabbi in Russia when the political situation for Jews there started to get dangerous. The risk of being enslaved became too great in his estimation and he went to England, where his surname, offensive to Anglophone ears, was changed to that of a famous fictional character. He stayed with his cousin, also a Russian expatriate, for a short while there en route to Ellis Island. He arrived in New York dirt-poor, and a group of local Jews who had organized to help Jewish immigrants make it in the Big Apple gave him a $20 bill to show to an immigration agent to prove he had a little money, then they met up with him on the other side and set him up with free room and board til he got on his feet. I can’t tell you when he learned English, but he eked out a living in New York for a while and eventually ended up in one of the colder states in the Union, where he raised his family and coincidentally owned and managed a general store which employed my maternal grandparents for a short time. His son would marry the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. I don’t know their story–the marriage ended while my father was in grade school.
My maternal great-grandfather was also Norwegian, and as a 20-something lad he snuck onto a ship headed for America. He either brought his favorite lady with him or met her on the ship, and they conceived my grandfather in international waters. From what I hear, my grandfather liked to say he was a man of no country. He passed away before my mother graduated from high school, so I wouldn’t know firsthand. He would marry the daughter of Czech immigrants (who presumably had a much less interesting story, because I’ve never heard it) and of course start a family with her in another one of the colder states in the Union.
I hopped on a plane 3 months ago from Sydney. I got upgraded to business class because the plane was overbooked. It made the 14 hour trip far less unbearable.
My Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather and Grandmother on my father’s side were Huguenots who emigrated from Fance in the 1690s to Holland, where they lived for a few years. In 1699, they moved to England to gain passage on a ship to America. They arrived and settled in Williamsburg, VA, in 1700.
I’m not sure when my Mother’s side came over, but it was likely in the 1700s. They were Welsh.
It all started in the Picardie region of France in 1659. Born Andreas Nenaut, an esteemed stocking knitter and soldier in the Frei-Kohorte of Herrn Moulin, in Wehrden my great ancestor married Katharina Olinger and they moved to Germany where the spelling of their children’s last names would later be spelled Neno instead of Nenaut.
One of their sons, Johan Neno, begot Josef Neno.
Josef Neno begot Nikolaus Nenno.
Nikolaus begot Michael.
Michael immigrated to the United States in 1833 and later begot Peter.
Peter begot Leo.
Leo begot Cletus.
Cletus begot Robert.
Robert begot Bear_Nenno. Wooo hooooo
My mother came here from Ireland.
My father came here from somewhere in South America.
They had me.
They put me up for adoption.
I ended up in Palos Park.
Don’t know where they are.
I only know the story (or parts thereof) for 3/4 of my grandparents - my mom being estranged from her biological father.
Pop’s pop: New York Dutch. 100%, I think. The family name comes from a family that came over before these here new-fangled states united. (Hi, Pleonast! We’re probably not related; my ancesters settled further up the Hudson. Though, then again, you never know!) I am literally generation “X” - the tenth generation to carry my last name in the states. (The name was changed from the original dutch, most likely due to bad handwriting.) We can absolutely trace back the family tree to the town in the Netherlands, and possibly to Wilhelm Barentz (although that one’s a bit tenuous).
Pop’s mom: Welsh, but mixed. (Let’s say 50%.) Long-time residents on Long Island. Possibly a decendant of the first man hanged in America for murder. Not at all sure of that one… The problem is that her familial name (Weeks) is so common, it rivals ‘Smith’.
Mom’s mom: Swiss on at least one side. (Let’s say again 50%.) This side is the one that most recently immigrated to these shores. From the last name (Anderegg), I figure that these ancesters were farmers. (On the plow.)
First ancestor in the New World worked fishing vessels off the New England coast and had settled in Naumkeag (later Salem) by 1623.
Many came from England during the Puritan migration of the 1630s. Many more came from the German Pietist migration of the late 1600s. The latest came from Germany about 1900.
Yes, on several counts. On my mother’s side, there were two immigrants on the Mayflower, William Brewster, and William Bradford. Both lineages have been traced back to about 1535 or so. I have one line going back to 1420. There are other members of this board who can go back much further.
On my father’s side, my great grandfather came from Prussia in the 1800s. I don’t know what prompted their emigration from Germany, but quite possibly it was the threat of conscription, or just looking for a better life than that of a wheelwright or wagon-maker in rural Germany.
Yo, another Mayflower descendent here! An ancestor, Peter C., who was also apparently a French Huguenot, stowed away on his brother’s ship, arriving in 1692 in southeastern Massachusetts and marrying Penelope White, granddaughter of Resolved White. We’ve been swamp Yankees ever since; my grandfather’s cousins had farms in Vermont until the late 20th century, and Grandpa was born in Irish Harlem in 1897 (don’t know why his folks came down from NE). Before that, I had relatives who got drafted into the Revolution and the Civil War, at least on the winning sides.
He married the Chelsea-born (NY) daughter of Irish/English immigrants and had three boys, the youngest of which is my Dad, who married a Brooklyn girl who was herself descended from potato-famine-fleeing Roscommon/Monaghan folks and a farm girl who came down from Nova Scotia during the Depression to work as a maid for wealthy Yanks with her sisters. She never lost her Scots accent and came from Angus MacDonald and family, who emigrated over from 'round Innisfree in the Highlands in 1822, because being Catholic during the Enclosure Act sucked even more than usual.
My dad’s family is from the Philippines. They were farmers in Pangasinan province, north of Manila. My grandfather had a scar on his neck that he said was from fighting Japanese soldiers when they occupied the country in WWII, but my dad says it was from some farming accident. At some point Grampa got a business degree from the University of Manila, married Gramma, and had 9 children. One of them died as a baby. The eldest (my dad’s brother) joined the US Coast Guard in the 60s through some sort of special program and helped the rest of the family move here and get citizenship. Grampa’s sister is still alive, but very old now, running the farm back home. For a while she kept bugging me to move there and take over.
Grampa’s father, whose name is my middle name, was a sort of people’s advocate during Spanish rule. He wasn’t officially anything, but he traveled around helping settle disputes and such. The family name originates with him, actually. Before the Spanish, Filipinos didn’t use surnames as such; it was more like the medieval practice of attaching a descriptive name, like John the (black)Smith. The Spanish didn’t like this as it made administration difficult, so they started assigning names out of an approved book. My great-grandfather’s surname got reassigned a few times because he kept moving, until he finally settled down somewhere.
My mom’s side of the family is from all over Europe. Her generation and her parents’ were all born in the US, but beyond that it varies. One branch has been in California for 4 or 5 generations, starting with a young man who came to San Francisco during the Gold Rush days. I don’t remember the whole story, but he booked passage on a ship that wrecked in South America, ran out of money, and convinced the captain of another ship to give him passage in exchange for free labor. Another branch was living in Maine before the Revolution, but didn’t have much to do with the fighting. (My mom likes to say that she technically qualifies to be in the Daughters of the American Revolution, but for the mutual revulsion.) Some of my ancestors came from Ireland to escape the Potato Famine. My mom’s dad’s dad was from Czechslovakia, but never spoke of it other than to insist that he was Czech rather than Slovak. He kept his original name, but refused to teach his kids or grandkids anything about his language or culture. (My dad is the same way, just to a lesser extent. I never learned to speak Tagalog except for a few words.)
So all told I’m half Filipino (with probably a bit of Spanish in there somewhere), part Irish, part German, part Portuguese, part Czech, part Algonquin Indian (one ancestor 8 or so generations back), and who knows what the hell else.
My grandparents all came from areas that were, at least at one time, claimed by Poland. That seemsd the easiest way to peg down their origins, without arguing about whether they were “really” from Poland or Russia or the Ukraine or whatever. Certainly they all spoke Polish as their mother tongue.
I’ve found the records of both my grandmothers coming over through Ellis Island. One lived in Brooklyn with others from her village, and married my grandfather because everyone thought it would be a good idea. I’m not sure how much, if any, affection was involved. The two of them left for a small town in New Jersey, probablt because of his business contacts/prospects.
My other grandmother worked as a cleaning wioman at the old Waldorf-Astoria (the one they tore down to build the Empire State Building) until one day she stuck both hands into a bucket of strong ammonia by mistake. This did not do her hands any good, and she had them bandaged for months, during which she couldn’t do any more floor washing. She took a job sewing clothes in a factory in some little burg in New Jersey. There she met my other grandfather, who’d come over much earlier and spent a lot of time knocking about the Eastern States (and leaving no visible trace – I’ve looked for them, but young single males don’t leave much in the way of records) before settling down to factory work in New Jersey. He met my grandmother playing cards.
They had their kids in the same town, and my mother got to be best friends with my father’s sisters, so they met and got married, and here I am.
Pepper Mill has a much more older (in this country), varied and colorful family past, including relatives among the Salem Witches and other early Massachusetts pioneers.
My paternal grandfather’s father immigrated from Southwestern Norway to Chicago around 1903 or '04. Grandpa didn’t emigrate until around 1909 when GG married his second wife.